CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER VIII.

There came a knock at Preacher Sampson Steward’s cabin door that same night about midnight. Instantly his mind was on the alert. He had been stretched on the bed at full length for an hour listening intently to sounds outside. The thunder and lightning had ceased, and the rain and the wind beat a monotonous tattoo against the window panes. There was a world of possibilities in that knock. He could not from the sound tell whether it heralded peace or war, and these were troublous times in Kansas. It was in Preacher Steward’s nature to speak his convictions fearlessly, and this made him a special object of hatred to many pro-slavery men who would have gladly rid the country of his presence, did not his well known courage and marksmanship afford him some protection against open attack.

A tallow candle sputtered in its place on the stand. Near the stand was the window, protected by a wooden shutter. Beside him on the bed where he lay half-dressed, his wife and two children lay wrapped in slumber. The knock was repeated; Steward sprang to the floor, reached out his hand and grasped his pistols, laying them handy for use on the stand by the sputtering candle, seized his rifle, cocked it, slipped the heavy iron bolt of the door with his free hand, stepped back a pace and drew a bead on the door, then with set face and tightly drawn lips, he said firmly:

“Come in!”

The door swung open, admitting a gust of rain and wind. The tall, stout figure of Ebenezer Maybee was outlined against the blackness of the night, his attire plentifully sprinkled with the mud and rain. One hand held a driving whip, the other grasped the door-latch, while his keen eyes watched the white face behind the rifle whose muzzle almost touched his breast, yet giving no sign of fear.

“What!” The parson turned fighter with a vengeance, he said at length, in quiet tones. “This ain’t at all ’bligatory on you, Steward. You ought to know my knock by this time. Put up your gun.”

Steward instantly complied.

“Is it you, Maybee?” he queried, standing the weapon with its muzzle against the wall. “Come in!”

“Somethin’ inter-estin’ you’ve picked up by the way of makin’ your friends welcome, Steward?” Maybee replied, with a grim smile, as he closed the door and advanced to grasp the minister’s extended hand.

“God forgive me, Maybee, but it is more than human nature can stand. Sunday week it was only by a special act of Providence that my congregation escaped massacre. Since then I’m a marked man. I am on special guard duty to-night.”

“What’s up?”

“Had a message from the Rangers.”

An exchange of significant glances followed this speech.

“Oh. I see. Perhaps then we’d better bring in our fugitives at once.”

“What have you this time?”

“A young man and woman and a young Englishman, who is helping them away. It’s a long story. All of ’em’s good shots; the gal ain’t slow on a pinch.”

“Good!” replied the parson, evidently relieved. “We can put her in the loft. The Lord sent you, Maybee; it’s inspiration to have some one to help out in an emergency.”

“You’re really expectin’ trouble, then?”

“Yes; but let’s get them in as quickly as possible. After that I’ll tell you all about it.”

The storm had chilled the air, and the parson kindled a fire in the stove, throwing on a plentiful supply of wood.

“I’m ready. Come to the door.”

Maybee obeyed; the parson blew out the candle, leaving the room in darkness.

“Now bring them in. I’ll stay here till you return. Be careful, and lose no time.”

Maybee opened the door and the darkness instantly swallowed him. When he returned with the fugitives, Steward saw dimly, by the firelight shining among the shadows, the beautiful girl and the stalwart black. He regarded Winona with a look of vague wonder and admiration. In all his life he had seen no women to compare with her.

He noted, too, the golden hair and fair complexion of the young Englishman. It was no common party that sought the shelter of his rude cabin on this stormy night. His familiar eye noted the signs of strength, too, in the youthful figures.

“Good!” he told himself. “If we do have a call from the Rangers, we’ll die with our boots on; that’s some satisfaction.”

He beckoned to Maybee, and speaking a few words to his wife who was awake, thrust his pistols into an inner pocket, and directing Warren to bolt the door after them and not to open save at a given signal, the two men went out into the storm to feed and stable the horses. This accomplished, they returned to the house, and after carefully fastening the door, Steward lighted the candle and began preparing supper for his unexpected guests.

“Now, Maybee, where from and where bound? Tell me all about it.”

In a few graphic sentences, in his peculiar mixed dialect, Mr. Maybee rehearsed the story with which we are so well acquainted.

The parson listened intently with an occasional shake of the head or a sympathetic glance in the direction of Winona. “I caught up with ’em at the ferry, an’ I took the ol’ road so’s to lessen the chances of pur-suit or of meetin’ any on-welcome company on the way. I’ve sent word to Captaing Brown to look out for us. It was a bluff game with odds, but we’ve won,” he concluded.

Steward laughed.

“We have generally proved winners even with the odds against us.”

Warren leaned back against the wall of the rude cabin wearied from the long nervous strain, but listening intently to all that passed.

“Judah’s a lion, and Winona has the pluck of a man,” Maybee went on. “She doesn’t whimper, but jes’ saws wood an’ keeps to her in-structions.”

Warren spoke now.

“You have as many manœuvres to gain admittance to your house as some of the Indian fighters I used to read about when a boy. What are you expecting to-night, Mr. Steward?”

“Some of the gang,” replied the parson, stopping in his occupation of cutting strips of bacon for the frying pan. “They have threatened me with vengeance because I sheltered John Brown and his men on their way north a month or two back. Reynolds brought me word this morning that they had concluded to visit me to-night. Reynolds hasn’t the nerve to come out as I do, and avow his principles, but maybe it’s better so that the gang don’t know it; through him I keep informed of all their movements.”

“Don’t know thar leetle program, do you?” carelessly questioned Maybee, as he threw back the lid of the coffee-pot to keep its contents from boiling over.

“No; Reynolds didn’t learn that,” replied Steward, as he adjusted the meat in the pan and placed it over the fire, “He thinks their intention is to decorate my anatomy with tar and feathers.”

“Mos’ cert’n’ly,” nodded Maybee, as he took his turn at tending the frying meat while Steward sliced potatoes to brown in the bacon fat after the meat was cooked.

“Mr. Steward, if we had been of their number when we came to the door just now, what would you have done?” asked Warren.

The parson held his knife over a half-peeled potato, and looked the young man in the face, while his eyes glowed with excitement.

“Well, had you been one of Bill Thomson’s riders, I would have sent a bullet through you without a word. It is written: ‘This day will the Lord deliver thee into my hand; and I will smite thee, and take thy head from thee.’”

“Pardon me for what I am about to say,” continued Warren, “but I cannot understand how you can reconcile such a proposed course with your profession. I make no pretention to piety myself, but I have a profound respect for those who conscientiously do.”

The preacher faltered.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Warren hastened to say, seeing the man of God hesitate. “I am not charging you with anything. I simply cannot reconcile the two ideas, that’s all. I don’t quite understand your position.”

“That’s jest what I’ve wanted to say to Steward here, many a time, but not being gifted with gab, which mos’ people calls eddi-kation, I haven’t been able to perceed like the prefesser,” meaning our English friend, Mr. Maxwell. “Thar was that secret citizens’ meetin’ down in the timber, and Steward was fer shootin’ down at sight without a trial all onery cusses that was even suspected of bein’ onfriendly to the principles of the Free-Staters. Dad gum ’em, that’s my methods to a T, but it’s kin’ o’ rough jestice fer a parson,” chuckled Maybee.

“Well, gentlemen, what would you do in my place? What show have I against a gang of ten or more men unless I meet them promptly with the initiative? What better course could I have pursued with the mob that came to our church during service? When I beheld them round about us and heard their savage cries, when I saw the terror of the women and children and bethought me of their fate if perchance, the men were all slain, I girded up my loins and taking a pistol in each hand, I led forth my elders and members against the Philistines; and I said to them: ‘This day I will give the carcasses of your hosts unto the fowls of the air, and the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.’ Verily, not one was spared.”

“To-night I was here single-handed. I have a wife and two children dependent on me for support. Must I be denied the right of defense against superior numbers because I hate slavery and have the courage of my convictions?”

The speaker’s eyes—his whole face, in fact—glowed and scintillated with holy wrath and firm conviction in the justice of his case.

“No, let me explain further!” Warren hastened to exclaim, “It is not your defense that I question, but your aggressive spirit. Now, as I understand it, these men are a part of the territorial militia; if so, do not your acts smack somewhat of treason?”

“Treason! the word by which traitors seek to hang those who resist them. I hate the laws that make this country a nursery for slavery, and I resist them by rescuing all who come to me for refuge. Three hundred will not excuse the number that have passed this station on the underground railroad since I have been here. Oppression is oppression, whether it enslaves men and women and makes them beasts of burden, or shuts your mouth and mine if we utter humane protests against cruelty. If this is treason, make the most of it; there’s one thing certain, unless I am caught napping, they are going to pay dearly for whatever advantage they secure over me.”

“I concur with you,” Warren replied, rising from his seat, and pacing back and forth thoughtfully. “You have a perfect right to defend your home from brutal attack, and so long as I am here I am subject to your orders. But let us hope the storm will soon blow over; the South will see its error and the Negroes will be granted freedom by peaceful means.”

Steward and Maybee laughed silently and heartily at the young man’s earnest words.

“Ef you stayed ’roun’ here long nuff and warn’t a British subjec’, my fren’, you might git a taste of this scrimmage that’d con-vince you that the South is a horned hornet on the nigger question. Time ’n tide nor God A’mighty won’t change the honery skunks. Them’s my sentimen’s.”

“The storm,” said Judah with wild exultation in his voice, “the storm is but gathering force. These bloody happenings which are convulsing Missouri and Kansas are but the preliminary happenings to a glorious struggle which will end in the breaking of every chain that binds human beings to servitude in this country.”

Warren regarded him in astonishment.

“Why do you think so, Judah?”

“I cannot tell. But I feel that the sin will be punished in a great outpouring of blood and treasure until God says it is enough. The day of deliverance for the Negro is at hand.”

“Amen! The boy is a true prophet. ‘Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.’ Bring your chairs up to the table and have some hot coffee and a bit to eat.”

The meal over, from which all rose refreshed and strengthened, Steward placed a ladder against the wall and mounting it, threw back a trap door in the ceiling closely concealed by festoons of strings of dried apples and bunches of onions and herbs. He then returned to the room and lit an extra candle, beckoning Winona to follow him up the steep ascent. Speaking a few words of caution to her, he descended the ladder, which he removed and put out of sight. Warren watched his movements with great curiosity. How fast he was gaining a true knowledge of life and living here in these American wilds among a rough but kindly people. These friends of the fugitive slaves lived by but one principle, “Greater love than this hath no man.”

His refined sensibilities were satisfied by the melodramatic coloring of his surroundings. The atmosphere of art had affected him enough for him to perceive the beauties of the picture made by the stalwart men, the gigantic black’s refined prowess and the noble lines and graceful pose of Winona’s neck and shoulders.

Preacher Steward moved out a number of wooden sea chests from beneath the tall, four-posted bed where his wife and children lay wrapped in slumber. He spread at the extreme back of the open space a pair of blankets and then signed Judah to creep under the bed; when he had done so, the parson pushed back the trunks as nearly as possible to their old positions, thus completely concealing the fugitive from view.

“We can’t start before five o’clock, and we may as well get all the rest we can,” said Maybee.

It was after midnight when Warren, Maybee and their host lay down upon the floor which was spread with a buffalo robe and blankets.

“It’s the best the railroad can offer under the circumstances. The railroad isn’t wealthy and we have to put up with some discomforts.”

“This beats sleeping on the ground without blankets, as we sometimes bivouac out to Captaing Brown’s camp, all holler,” replied Maybee, sleepily. “Declar’, I’m dead beat.”

“As I understand it, this isn’t a railroad; it is only hiding fugitives as they pass to Canada.”

“Exactly. But many people believe in an underground railroad, with regular trains running on time, stopping points, and everything in railroad style?”

“Really?”

“You bet,” grunted Maybee, half-asleep.

“Yes, sir; some men of fair intelligence, too, have faith in it. They can account for the results we accomplish in no other way. A fugitive is passed along by us, night after night, until he secures his freedom. Our methods are a profound mystery.”

“Let ’m stop right thar,” returned Maybee. “You fellers’d better git to sleep.”

Steward extinguished the light, placed his weapons where they could be reached instantly, and laid down by Warren. The rain still fell gently down in a patter on the roof, the little clock ticked in its place over the wooden stand. Warren could not sleep. An hour passed. There was a footstep. Warren’s ear alone caught the sound. He raised himself on his elbow and grasped his pistol. There were more steps. They came nearer. A hand was passed cautiously over the door. Warren touched the form of Steward.

“What is it?” he asked in a whisper.

“Listen!”

The movement at the door continued as softly as before.

“Who’s there?” called out Steward.

“Travellers; we want to find the road.”

“Where from?”

“Missouri.”

“Where yer boun?” shouted Maybee, jumping to his feet. There was a sound of parleying in subdued voices at Maybee’s question. Then came the answer, “Nebraska.”

“You’re right for that. This is the Jim Lane route. Keep the main road and you’ll not miss it,” again answered Steward. A moment passed. Then came the inquiry: “Can you put us up till mornin?”

“Cayn’t do it,” spoke up Maybee again. “Our beds are full. How many of you?”

“Two.”

“Sorry, but you’ll have to keep on. Can’t do anything for you.”

“Say, have you seen anything of a nigger man an’ gal an’ a white man a-pilotin’ ’em?”

“Nary one, mister,” again spoke up Maybee.

“Reckon we’ll push on then.”

The sound of horses’ feet died in the distance.

After that there was no more sleep in the cabin, though the remainder of the night passed in quiet.

Steward and his guests were early astir. The storm had cleared. The men left the house to prepare for an early start at the first streaks of dawn; when they returned, Mrs. Steward had breakfast ready.

Silence pervaded the little band. Each was pre-occupied with thoughts he did not care to discuss.

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